How Millie Learned to Talk (The Bletchley Circle)
by GirlonaBridge
Summary: Millie can speak fourteen languages, but some things are still hard to say. Fourteen moments in Millie's life, each one tied to a language she learned (yes I'm taking a guess at what some of them are).
1. 1 English

'Kiss Mama darling. I have to go now. Daddy's waiting.'

Millie stiffens her arms and digs her fingers into the thick fur of the tiger-skin rug. This is her favourite place, the fur warmed by the fire, feels alive and she knows that the creature will protect her. Here is where Mama always comes to kiss her, sweeping in on a wave of perfume and laughter that makes Millie's heart beat faster. Mama catches her up and spins her round and she is strange and beautiful. Millie gets dizzy. She screams for more, kicks her feet and tries to put her arms around Mama's neck. But that makes Mama put her down fast with a strange little cry.

'Oh my dress, my hair. Really Millie, you must be careful. Mind Mama's pearls.'

So Millie sprawls on the rug and watches as Mama talks to Nanny. When Nanny nods and smiles and says how good Millie has been, drunk up all her milk and ever so quiet and sweet today, Mama goes quickly. But when Nanny's face gets stiff and her mouth goes small, she takes ever so long to answer Mama's questions. Then Mama has to take her time and ask lots more things and Nanny takes ages to tell all the bad things that Millie has done. And all this time Millie can watch Mama, the way the light twinkles off her earrings, the soft folds of her dress making shifting shadows, the incredible patterns that lace makes against her shoulders, the firelight playing on her face that is never still and the same for more than a second so that Millie has to watch carefully to keep track of it.

Then Mama crouches over Millie and reaches out to her and Millie is enveloped, caught up in her scent and her voice and her sad, sweet smile.

'Oh my Milliekins, what have you been doing to poor Nanny? Have you been torturing her all day long?'

And Millie will squirm and rub her face against Mama's dress and whisper her version of events fiercely fast and totally incomprehensible until Mama prises her away and frowns while she examines and flicks at her dress.

'Oh Millie be careful.'

And Millie will mumble, 'Sorry' and Mama will beam her bestest smile that makes Millie glow warm and bright in her tummy as the nursery fire.

'There's my good girl,' Mama says. But always, sooner or later, she says...

'Kiss Mama now, I have to go.' And all the fire goes out, like pouring the washing jug of water on it. So Millie lies on the tiger-skin and digs her fingers down through the fur to the skin and makes her arms go stiff and her legs go stiff and her whole body tighten so she can't feel the cold water feeling sloshing inside her. She hides her face in the fur so she can't see Mama go and she can't hear the door snick for the 'NO' in her head.


	2. 2 French

Je suis

Tu et

Il est

Elle est

Millie chants the words, enjoys how they twist her mouth into strange shapes and chime in her ears. She repeats after her governess. She traces her finger along the lines of her books and translates letters she has never seen together before into sweet sounds and secret meanings. French is her favourite subject. On French mornings she must call Miss Swanson Mademoiselle and, although Mademoiselle will not play along, she pretends that her own name is Adele. It is so romantic.

'Encore une fois,' Mademoiselle says, again, again.

Millie nods seriously, practising her Adele face which she has copied from a photograph she saw in one of Mama's ballet programmes. She remembers the big eyes, the smooth cheeks, the slightly pursed lips, the way her face floated off the page and tugged at Millie's heart.

On Friday evenings, when she is allowed to sit up to dinner with her parents, she tries out specially learned phrases.

'C'etait delicieux.'

Her parents do not correct her as Mademoiselle does, but smile at each other across the candlesticks.

'Les candélabres,' Millie whispers, watching the flames flicker across her father's face.

'Sit up straight darling.' Millie smiles her tranquil Adele smile. Everything is easier in French, she thinks. Everything is more beautiful.

There are so many things that she wants to say, so many feelings that she cannot express. Millie learns as fast as she can but lessons only last a few hours and French mornings are only twice a week. In between, the words, the beautiful magical words are kept locked up inside Miss Swanson's thick, navy Dictionnaire Français. One Friday night, she lies awake, wrestling with a new phrase Daddy had said to Mama at dinner.

'What a beautiful shade that is on you. It matches your eyes.' It was a beautiful compliment and Millie is sure it would be even more gorgeous in her precious language. When she hears the hall clock strike midnight she kicks off her covers. She will go down to the school-room and steal the Dictionnaire. She cannot bear this any more.

Her bare feet barely whisper on the carpeted stairs. The school-room door is open a crack so she doesn't need to worry about the handle squeaking. She slides her fingers around the edge of it and is about to push when she hears a noise inside. A muffled, shuffling, gasping sort of noise. Mice? Burglars? Millie puts her eye to the gap. Not mice, people. Not burglars. Daddy. Mademoiselle. Millie knows the word for what they are doing because she looked it up once, sneakily. Embrasser.

Il embrasse.

Elle embrasse.

She cannot remember the rest of the verb table. Il embrasse. Elle embrasse. Their faces swim in and out of the faint moonlight. Il. Elle.

She wants to scream. Arêtte-tu. No, that's not right. Arrêtez-vous. Arrêtez-vous maintenant.

But her fingers curl around the edge of the door and tug it closed. She leaves them in the dark.


	3. 3 Hindi

Millie is spying. Some old friend of Mummy's has waltzed in here uninvited and ruined Millie's Saturday afternoon with Mama, completely stealing her away. Millie has made up her mind to hate her so she is sitting in the rose bush, peeking and nursing a sheet of paper she found on the lawn. It is covered in strange and beautiful markings that Millie keeps tracing over and over with her fingertip, in between peeks through the branches.

The woman is so strange. She laughs all the time and her voice is too loud and her smile too big. She talks a lot, and uses lots of words that Millie doesn't know, has never heard before.

Millie twists the corners of her mouth down, pretending the sound of the words is nasty, weird, but with each one she inches nearer and nearer through the branches until...

'Ouch!' Her hand closes around a particularly vicious thorn. The grown ups turn. Mummy frowns.

'What are you doing in there child? Come out at once.'

But Millie, seething to the ends of her hair, cannot come out at once because she has got herself thoroughly entangled in rose sprays and has to pick each thorn carefully from her new dress that she put on specially, for Mama. Mummy. Oh, she will never learn.

'Could I be of assistance?' a merry voice says in her ear. Millie jumps and hears something tear. She is ready to burst into tears when she looks up at the owner of the voice and into a pair of the most enormous green eyes. She stops, mouth open, anger forgotten.

'Let me hold this... then if you turn that way...' A firm hand nudges her shoulder. Millie complies and, in a twinkling, finds herself freed from the bush and holding the detestable stranger's hand.

'Thank you,' she says, breathless. The woman's darting eyes spot the paper in her hand and it is twitched away before Millie can blink.

'You found my letter. You absolute poppet.' Millie blushes but curiosity overcomes her.

'What's that writing? Is it writing?'

'It is.'

'It's beautiful,' Millie gasps. 'Is that what you were saying before?'

'Why yes. I'll teach you if you like. Some stuck up fools don't approve, but I always like to be able to talk to as many people as possible.'

'Oh yes please!' Millie is in raptures.

'Bright as a button, aren't you? I wish I had you in my school.'

'Oh.' Millie thinks there can be nothing better than to be wanted by this lady. 'Mummy says I will go to school soon. May I go with you?'

Her laugh warms Millie through. 'Oh precious, you would have to come to India and I don't think your Mother wants to send you quite that far.'

Millie feels Mummy's eyes locate the tear in her dress, the escaped curls, senses the frown underneath her society smile. Millie tugs her new friend's arm until she can whisper in her ear.

'She might.'


End file.
